Note: There are TWO applications in this package. The Mirror Server (which you may have just installed) goes on your RBS Server computer. The Mirror Client Installer (which was installed with the Mirror Server) goes on your Mirror computer – the computer that will act as your RBS Server’s Mirror. Please read this documentation completely before proceeding.
If you have not installed this application (the Mirror Server) on your RBS Server computer, uninstall it now and install it on your RBS Server.
The RBS Mirror Server and the RBS Mirror Client maintain an exact copy of the important directories of your RBS Server at an offsite (or onsite) location. Whenever files are added, updated, or deleted on your RBS Server, those changes are reflected on the remote computer (called the Mirror.) The Mirror Service can mirror multiple drives and Data Root folders.
The Mirror Server software runs on your RBS Server computer. The Mirror Client software runs on the remote computer. You can schedule the Mirror Client software to launch weekly, daily, hourly or less. It can be scheduled to launch during off-peak hours for your Remote Backup Service, making efficient use of available bandwidth.
The result is an exact duplicate of your RBS Server, ready to put into service if needed, or ready for you to copy files back to your RBS Server.
The Mirror Service can also be configured to archive files that have been deleted from the RBS Server. You can set it up so that when Clients delete files from the RBS Server manually, or through the automated File Retention settings of the Remote Backup Client software, the Mirror Client software copies them to an (often cheaper) offline storage location instead of simply deleting them.
What the Mirror Server WILL NOT do…
This is the first release of the RBS Mirror Server. In this release, it acts only as a Replication Server, simply mirroring the RBS Server’s main folders. Future releases will add advanced functionality to address the following issues.
· It will not fail over automatically if the RBS Server fails.
· It will not re-synchronize with the RBS Server after an outage.
· Unless you have a fully-licensed copy of the RBS Server software running on the Mirror, clients will not be able to back up and restore to the Mirror.
· The Mirror Server does not function as a fully-automated failover RBS Server.
You may be able to build a fully fault-tolerant Mirror using various utilities and a fully licensed RBS Server, available separately from Remote Backup Systems.
Installation Prerequisites
The Mirror Server and Mirror Client must run on separate computers. The computer that you use as your Mirror, and the one you use for your RBS Server must have identical drive mappings. For example, if your RBS Server has its application folder on Drive C: and four Data Root folders on different logical drives, so must your Mirror computer. They should ideally have the same amount of storage available.
The Mirror doesn’t have to have the same number of physical drives, as long as it has the same logical drives. You can use a drive partitioning utility to partition the Mirror with the same logical drives as the RBS Server.
The Mirror must have TCP/IP access to the RBS Server. The two computers can be in the same local network, or they can be in different data centers and will communicate across the Internet.
Since the Mirror will be handling the same amount of traffic that your RBS Server handles, it might need similar bandwidth. Make sure that the upload bandwidth from your RBS Server is enough to transmit all the files that came in overnight to the Mirror in the amount of time you have during off-peak hours.
For example, if your RBS Server has 1 MG download speed and 256K upload speed, it is going to require four times as much time to mirror the data to the Mirror computer as it did to upload it from your clients.